This constituency voted the CPI in 1957, and stayed with one formation or the other of the Congress ever since. Former chief minister and former deputy prime minister under Indira Gandhi, Y B Chavan, was elected from here from 1967 to 1980 on the Congress ticket (in 1980, it was the Congress-Urs ticket). In 1984, 1989 and in 1991 Pratap Bhonsale was the Congress MP; in 1996 the Shiv Sena's H N N Nimbalkar, who had been defeated in 1991, finally ousted the sitting MP by just 12,000 votes. Also in the fray as an Independent was a scion of the former royal family, Udayaraje Pratapsingh Bhonsale, who took away 113,000 votes.